Riptide
by Rhubarbara
Summary: Beacon Hills was just your typical, everyday town. That is until half a dead girl turns up in the woods. Then things really started to go downhill from there.
1. Chem-Notes and Murder Victims

Tess heard the news 10 minutes before homeroom.

Hannah and Jenny had found her by her locker, trying to find her Chemistry notes. Hannah nudged her, clearly excited about something. Although, that wasn't anything new. "So have you heard?"

"Heard what?" She replied, not really paying attention. Goddammit, if Isaac hadn't put her chem-notes back-

Hannah raised an beautifully maintained eyebrow, the disbelief evident in her voice. "About the body?"

That caught Tess's attention. She looked between them. "Body? What body? There's a dead body?"

"Yeah, they found it last night."

Holy shit. Like holy actual shit. "Well who's? Where?" A thought occurred to her. "Wait, is this legit or is it just like the time someone spread that rumour that Daisy Sykes had got crushed to death by a bus when really she was just in a minor car accident and her arm was broken? Cause people friggin' cried when she walked into homeroom. This school cannot handle another incident, Hannah."

"Nope, it's legit, couple of joggers found her." Jenny chipped in, not looking up from her phone. The Beacon Hills Police Department still hadn't released an 'official' statement, but word had already spread pretty quickly. She was currently informing Lydia of what they knew so far, which wasn't much.

Tess pointed to silence her, not that it would make a difference. "We can discuss the gritty details later." She pointed back to Hannah and then turned back to her locker. "You, keep talking."

It was as this exact moment a couple of teachers walked by, causing the three girls to act as nonchalant as possible, which quite frankly wasn't very. Hannah lowered her voice, this wasn't exactly a school-appropriate conversation they were having here. "Some girl in the woods. Grisly too."

"How grisly?" Ah, there were her notes, Isaac Lahey's testicles would live to see another lonely day of not knowing the touch of a woman.

The blonde grimaced, disgusted yet excited at the same time. "'They're still looking for parts of her' grisly."

"God." Tess closed the locker-door and turned to lean against it. "How do you even know about this?"

"Pat, he heard it off of Stiles."

"Stilinski?"

"No, Stiles Smith." Hannah leaned against the locker beside her as she smacked her arm. "Of course Stilinski."

Tess raised a hand in mock-surrender. "Sorry, just surprised his dad's let him know so much." Ouch, that kinda hurt.

"Kids hear shit." Hannah shrugged.

Well, she was right about that. God knows she knew way too much about the human body. Hell, Jackson had probably heard enough from his dad that he could hold his own when (and it was only a matter of when) he found himself in a police cell. Seriously, he had nearly hit so many people with that goddamn Porshce. How he had gotten a license escaped her. Tess tucked a strand of brow hair behind her ear. "Still, you'd never think something like that could happen here. I always thought Beacon Hills was pretty quiet." Well, there was what happened with the Hale family a few years back, but stuff like that was one-off kind of tragedy.

Hannah sighed. "Yeah well, I guess you never know your neighbours."

They stood there quietly, the atmosphere suddenly somber. Finding out there may very well be a murderer on the loose in your town will often do that to you. That is until Jenny piped up.

"So." She put her phone in her pocket. "Homeroom?"

"Can't, I'm showing the new girl around." Tess shrugged apologetically as she picked up her bag. "You know taking her to classes and stuff."

Jenny beamed, her sarcasm tangible as she cooed. "Aw, our Theresa, the model citizen." She squeezed her cheek.

"I know, I'm wonderful." Tess deadpanned as she removed her hand. Goddammit Jenny had strong fingers, she'd be feeling that one for days. Damn violinists.

She shrugged. "Maybe we could invite her to come on Friday, you know, make her feel welcome."

"And that, Jennifer Chang, is why you're the nice one." She saluted just as the bell rang. "See ya."

* * *

Here are some things you might like to know about our, and I'm using the term loosely here, heroine.

First of all, she and her parents lived in Beacon Hills, a town in which pretty much fuck-all happened. Which is why the gruesome murder of some girl was such hot gossip. It was pretty deal to a town like their's.

Second, in less than two painstakingly slow months, she'd finally have her braces off. At long last she could eat apples, chew gum and drink soda in copious quantities. Yep, living the dream.

And lastly, Theresa doesn't know this, but she's named after her mother's first girlfriend. Though that last one isn't at all relevant to the plot, more of a fun fact really.

Now you may be asking yourself why this little snippet of this random teenager's life is of such importance. And if you stop asking questions about and let me get to establishing the plot, I'll tell you.

For you see, in the months to follow our motley crew of protagonists will look back on this seemingly average Monday and realise that this was in fact their last 'normal day'. Sure events were already in motion before this, and some wouldn't be dragged into the fray until further down the line, but it was this moment, this insignificant Monday morning. That was when the world changed for Beacon Hills. And they knew, that from this day on, they were fucked.


	2. Cause Everyone Loves Ziggy

She always hated this part.

The being uprooted and moved halfway across the country she was used to. The catch up work for all her classes she could handle. Hell, she could live with repeating a year. But the first day, well that was always shit. She would always get lost, she'd make an idiot of herself introducing herself to the class and then she never knew how to act around people. You can't just walk up and sit with an established group of friends, you've got to be invited in. Even then you're just sitting there awkwardly as their having an entire conversation without you.

Oh, and she'd forgotten to bring a fucking pen. Great.

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

She was snapped out of her moment of self-pity by the return of the teacher whose name she had already forgotten with a girl, clearly her tourguide, at his side.

"Allison, this is Theresa. She'll be looking after you."

The so-called Theresa was few inches shorter than her, sporting a fashionable, slightly too large denim jacket. Her light brown hair was half-tied up, coming down a few inches past her chin. "Hi." She smiled, revealing a row of braces. She seemed, nice.

"Hi." Allison waved. Why the fuck was she waving? God she must look like an idiot. She needed to give some illusion of sophistication goddammit.

The nameless teacher, rubbed his hands together, sufficiently satisfied that she had everything she needed and that they weren't going to murder one another. "I'll leave you two to it." And with his job done, he left the two girls standing in the quad.

Theresa took the lead, obviously wanting to break the ice. "People just call me Tess, by the way. Tess Fitz-Simmons" Allison just smiled and nodded, before realising that this was the part where she introduced herself.

"Allison! Me, Allison Argent." She shrugged, having forgotten how to control the volume of her voice for a few seconds there.

Oh good God, five minutes in and it was already disintegrating. Picking it up on this (thank Christ), Tess gestured to the papers in her hand. "Want me to take a look at those for you?"

Scared of what might come out of her mouth, she just smiled and nodded dumbly as she handed the papers to her. Tess took the timetable and looked it over in a manner that could only have come from practice. Something told her that the girl did this a lot. After a moment Tess nodded, speaking more to herself than to Allison at times. "Right, so we're meant to be in English with Mr Curtis right now, and then I figured I could give you a quick rundown of the school during recess. The layout's pretty structured, but it can be quite daunting to a newbie. So you're gonna want to hold on to the map they gave you." She handed the papers back to her before pulling up the strap of her own bag. "So," she gestured behind her, "You ready to go?"

* * *

Tess went to take her seat by the window on the far side of the classroom in front of a Korean girl, obviously her friend, who had saved a seat for her. The girl leaned forward and whispered something in her ear, Tess nodded and they both turned around to look at her. They waved. Allison waved back. The teacher looked over his shoulder. The three of them stopped immediately, feigning innocence as he gave a brief plot summary of Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis'.

And that was then the boy in front of her turned around, and without a word, handed her a pen. Now, if he didn't give off that charming boy-next-door vibe, maybe she would've been a little bit creeped out. However, he was quite cute and she was in no position to be turning down free stationary, so she took it with a whispered thank-you.

The boy gave her a sheepish smile and turned back around. Aw, he was adorable. His jaw was little lopsided, but adorable. But now was not the time, she had more important to focus on.

Like Kafka's use of alienation, for instance.

* * *

Tess is taking her to her next class when she finally asks. "Sorry, you probably get this all this time. But it's-." She pointed at her own eyes, "-uh, heterochromia, right?"

For context, dear readers, Allison was asking this because Tess's eyes were noticeably two different colours and she need a way to kickstart a meaningful conversation.(Although you've probably gathered that much by this point.) Her left eye was green while the other was a dark brown. And when I say left I mean her left, so your right. Are we up to speed? Bitching.

"No actually- I got into a fistfight, got hit in the eye and it's been like this ever since." Tess shrugged as she directed them around a corner.

Allison had moved around often enough to recognise which conversations defined a person's impression of you and whether or not they would tolerate you. This was one of them. "Oh, did you then use it to boost your music career by reinventing yourself as a sexually ambiguous alien?"

Tess quirked a brow, mildly impressed. That's right, she gets David Bowie references. Tess patted her on the shoulder and gave a sigh of relief. "Oh thank god, you're cool."

Nailed it.

* * *

At lunch, Tess brought her over to sit at she and her friend's table. While Allison was more focused on remembering names, here's what she had picked up so far;

Pat and Hannah had been dating for a little bit over a year now and were therefore out of that phase of being insufferable to be in the company of. For example, they were obviously capable of sitting across from each-other at a table. Jennifer (Chang) was one of the three Jennifers in their grade alone, there was also White Jenny and Jenny New. By virtue of joining the school first, she retained the right to title of Just Jenny, as per the rules of high school. Isaac was on the Lacrosse team with Pat, he seemed like a sweet enough guy, even though he did seem to be in a heated debate with Tess over something as they sat across from each-other.

"Look, I put them back." He shrugged, hands raised in surrender.

"It's the principle of the matter- stop stealing my shit!" A thought occurred to her. "How do you even know my locker combination?"

Allison looked at the others, who were unfazed by the argument happen if at the end of their table. Huh, must be common.

"I wasn't stealing, I was borrowing. What can I say, no-one colour codes like you do, Theresa." He turned to Allison, clearly deflecting from the locker question. "Hold on to this girl right here, Newbie, she will get you through all your classes. Trust me, I speak from experience."

Tess took on the front of being offended. "Screw you, I've still got the chance to convince her I'm not a complete loser." To drive her point home, she reached across the table and lifted a French fry off of his plate, waggling it in his face as she scolded him. "And don't call her Newbie, if you do then we have to rename Jenny New and I do not want to go through that hassle again."

They stared each-other down for what seemed like an age, even though it was in fact 10 seconds, tops until Isaac finally conceded.

"Fair enough."

Tess beamed before biting down on the fry victoriously as Hannah turned to her and asked about San Francisco, clearly trying to steer the conversation away from the spat. Then Pat made some joke about the 49ers and the group burst out laughing. Somehow this led to a discussion about offensive team names. As they discussed the faults of the Red-Skins, she looked up and saw Pen-Boy over Jenny's shoulder. Then, in some cliché moment of chance, Pen-Boy looked up and their eyes met. He smiled and gave a sheepish wave, she waved back. God, so much waving today.

That was when his friend, a dark haired boy whom she recognised faintly from this morning, nudged him and he rejoined the conversation at his table.

Jenny looked turned over her shoulder, "Who were you waving at?"

Shit. Abort, abort. She was so close, she couldn't blow it now by letting them think she was some two-dimensional stereotype. "Uh, just some guy from our English class." Good, that was casual enough.

Tess leaned towards her to see for herself. "Oh, Scott McCall? Nice guy. Our moms work at the hospital together." She turned to Isaac. "He's on the team with you isn't he?"

"Yeah, don't really know him though." He shrugged

"Meh, all teenage boys could stand for improvement."

Pat and Isaac glared at her, genuinely offended. "Excuse you." Isaac chuffed, hand to his chest.

"Meh," Hannah chipped in, "She's got a point."

Patrick actually looked betrayed as he let out a hurt "Babe?"

"Oh please, you wardrobe was abysmal before we started dating and Isaac owns more cardigans than the four girls here combined."

Now it was Isaac's turn to be defensive. "What about Tess?" He waved a hand at her. "She wears cardigans all the time."

Hannah looked at him. "Tess likes to wear sweaters, there's a difference."

Then he turned his attention to her, "Well maybe Allison owns a tonne of cardigans."

Hannah never broke eye-contact with Isaac as she asked-"Allison, do you own a lot of cardigans?"

"Not really."

Hannah gestured to the three other girls smugly. "I rest my case." And, without missing a beat, she turned back to Pat. "Now, back to why I hate the city of Boston in general."


End file.
